Marriage of Inconvenience(Knitting in the City Book #7)(55)

We entered the building, took the elevator to my floor, and walked down the hall and into my place, all the while I answered text messages.

“So, Alex just messaged. He has Wally. We can get changed and go.”

“Okay.”

Holding my cell to my ear, I listened to Betty list off all the changes to my schedule next week, and I gestured toward the second bedroom. “You can use that room. I’ll be right back.”

She tugged her backpack higher and clutched her garment bag to her chest. Still not looking at me, she disappeared into the bedroom.

I put Betty on speaker while I changed in my room, pulling on my newest suit. Quinn and I used a guy in Chicago for our suits and shirts, all handmade, all custom-cut. Once you went custom-cut, you never went back. There was no comparison between a bespoke suit of clothes and something off the rack.

It was the difference between watching a Sox game on TV versus Fenway Park. You knew something was lacking, but you couldn’t comprehend the disparity until you took your seat behind home base and “Sweet Caroline” played over the loudspeaker. No comparison.

But enough about suits and baseball.

I glanced at myself in the mirror, my attention snagging on the Celtic ink at the side of my neck. I frowned at the tattoos, or what was visible of them, and turned from the mirror to the bureau. Opening the top drawer, my attention settled on the velvet box in the front right corner. I’d bought it in London, from the same guy—or, I guess bloke—Quinn had used for Janie’s engagement ring.

Maybe I was an idiot, but I wanted Kat to wear a ring I’d bought for her. Yeah, it was a fake marriage. Yeah, it didn’t mean anything. I knew it was all a ruse, we both did. So what was the harm?

If she didn’t like it, then she didn’t have to wear it. No harm. No biggie.

I stuffed the box in my front pocket and grabbed my keys and wallet.

Taking Betty off speaker, I held my phone to my ear as I strolled out of the master bedroom, making a mental note to double-check the figures for our clients in the London financial district before next Monday.

And then Betty’s voice faded away, and all thoughts of work and clients and next Monday completely fled my mind. Because I was staring. At Kat.

She was . . . there were no words.

But I could tell you she was standing next to the couch, reading something on her cell, and wearing a dress.

It was long, almost to the floor. The material looked soft and thin, and would’ve been see-through except there were layers of it. It was the same color as her lips: rose pink. Her gorgeous shoulders and arms were bare. From the looks of it, so was her back, except the tie at her neck—hidden by her hair—trailed between her shoulder blades, along bare skin of her spine to her waist.

The woman was a fucking vision.

And I was so fucked.

I hadn’t quite recovered when she looked up and caught me staring. And like the dumbfuck I was, I just kept staring, particularly when I realized there was no way she could show all that skin and wear a bra. Unless there was some bra made of witchcraft and the invisible wings of fairies that I didn’t know about.

Miraculously, she didn’t seem to notice my staring. Her eyes were too busy moving over my suit.

So, there we were. Me looking at her with lust in my heart, her looking at me with . . . I don’t know, maybe appreciation? Hard to tell. I couldn’t see past the lust.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s cow, Daniel, came a stern voice in the back of my mind. It sounded a lot like Sister Mary Roseanne, my first grade teacher. I mentally made a rude gesture at the voice. First, because Kat wasn’t a cow. Second, because my neighbor was Steven, and everybody knew he liked dick.

“Should we go?” Kat turned away from me, her hair falling forward over her shoulder and hiding her face. But it also revealed the tie at the base of her neck and the olive-toned expanse of her back. I suspected that one pull of the string would cause a wonderful cascade of events.

Then I couldn’t stop thinking about those events.

I didn’t answer, because the words I wanted to say were the wrong ones. Instead, I ripped my eyes from her and walked to the door, holding it open. She walked past, this time fiddling with bracelets at her wrist.

The walk down the hall, the ride in the elevator, the stroll in the lobby—all of it was spent in tense silence. Tense and agitated. I was combatting a serious case of blood loss to my brain. No matter how I sat in the back of the SUV on the trip to the Clerk’s office, I couldn’t get comfortable.

Neither of us said a word as we exited the car, and we both kept our own company when we reentered the building we’d visited last week. We walked through the security line and metal detector. Not bothering to give our name to the receptionist, I led the way to Luis’s cubicle and knocked on the counter to gain his attention.